by Lucinda Trew<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the first Thanksgiving
like the first of everything
was difficult after grandmother died
following a long lean year of mourning
we gathered to bake pies, hold hands
pass plates and feast
in the kitchen, aunts bustled, bumping
backsides in a dance of raised mitted hands
relaying Pyrex dishes to the timer\u2019s ding
a coven of aproned witches wiping
steam-fogged glasses and the sweet-salty
tears of laughter and loss
it wasn\u2019t until the bird was basted
and done, plattered and preened with rosemary
sprigs, that someone remembered the gravy
grandmother\u2019s secret, sacred gravy \u2013
a matriarch\u2019s chore, no back-of-the-jar
instruction, no time for watch-and-learn
who, it was whispered and sighed, might
step up to the pan and channel the lost art
of blending jewel-like drippings into holy glaze?
there was a hush and huddle, a kitchen conclave
and by way of acclamation, the eldest daughter
was ordained to remove fat and grease, deglaze
with wine, gently loosening brown bits aswirl
in the depths of a roasting dish, whisking
a bereavement balm into being as we hovered
held breath, awaiting the ascent of carcass
and sweetmeats into holy elixir<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lucinda Trew, author of What Falls to Ground<\/em> (Charlotte Lit Press, 2025), is a poet rooted in the pine forests and red clay of North Carolina\u2019s Piedmont. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and recipient of Boulevard\u2019s<\/em> 2023 Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets. Her poems appear in Cagibi Literary Journal, The North Carolina Literary Review, Burningword Literary Journal, storySouth,<\/em> and other journals and anthologies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Lucinda Trew the first Thanksgivinglike the first of everythingwas difficult after grandmother died following a long lean year of mourningwe gathered to bake pies, hold handspass plates and feast in the kitchen, aunts bustled, bumpingbacksides in a dance of raised mitted handsrelaying Pyrex dishes to the timer\u2019s ding a coven of aproned witches wipingsteam-fogged glasses and the sweet-saltytears of laughter and loss it wasn\u2019t until the bird was bastedand done, plattered and preened with rosemarysprigs, that someone remembered the gravy grandmother\u2019s secret, sacred gravy \u2013a matriarch\u2019s chore, no back-of-the-jarinstruction, no time for watch-and-learn who, it was whispered and sighed, mightstep up to the pan and channel the lost artof blending jewel-like drippings into holy glaze? there was a hush and huddle, a kitchen conclaveand by way of acclamation, the eldest daughterwas ordained to remove fat and grease, deglazewith wine, gently loosening brown bits aswirl in the depths of a roasting dish, whiskinga bereavement balm into being as we hoveredheld breath, awaiting the ascent of carcassand sweetmeats into holy elixir Lucinda Trew, author of What Falls to Ground (Charlotte Lit Press, 2025), is a poet rooted in the pine forests and red clay of North Carolina\u2019s Piedmont. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, and recipient of Boulevard\u2019s 2023 Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets. Her poems appear in Cagibi Literary Journal, The North Carolina Literary Review, Burningword Literary Journal, storySouth, and other journals and anthologies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-18-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepetigrureview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}